The Dark Side or: Anakin's Fall
by DoroGabriele
Summary: Anakin is in agony. What can he do? He has been told to stay and wait here but he mustn't lose his only chance to save Padmé, the love of his life...


Night! You'd please me even more without these stars

which speak a language I know all too well-

I long for darkness, silence,

_nothing there. . ._

(Charles Baudelaire, "Les Fleurs du Mal")

How is it possible that the small boy inside the Jedi temple sees Anakin Skywalker coming in, is hoping for rescue... but he has to perceive inexorable earnest in the young face - a miming more and more distorting itself in a most fearsome way, a lightsaber hissing to action - pitiless, with cold thoroughness...?

The Dark Side or: Anakin's Fall

Restlessly, Anakin Skywalker was walking to and fro in the council room; he paid no attention to it. He was in agony, sweat was running down his body, his breath went panting. Never had he been feeling worse; he felt as if his skin was literally drawn off him in shreds.

A horrible voice in his mind was whispering without intermission, tormenting him. It was the Sith-Lord. His friend, whom he had trusted. He was the Evil. The Jedi-masters were on their way to destroy him. Anakin had desparately been desiring to accompany them, he had begged for it, but he had to stay here. To suffer unbearable tortures.

"If you want to save Padmé... there is only one way..." The voice was pricking him like needles, pressing his painful conflict to incomprehensible heights.

The human experience is limited..., it occured to Anakin. Tears were running down his face. He withstood an impulse to pull his hair wildly, he'd want to tear them out in wisps.

The soft horrible voice did not let go, tormenting him inexorably. Anakin's soul was desparately longing for Padmé, he was reaching for her with the Force, literally flung his soul out of the window - it was hanging on silver cords... with all his force he was tugging at his fetters, silently screaming with frustration. Finally he appeared to succeed... he was able to touch her, he found incomprehensible tenderness and beauty. Love was flowing up inside him, wild joy was exploding within him. Blissfulness...

But yet she was torn away from him; he felt something breaking inside himself, he was all shock. She would die. He would lose her. She was his life - Anakin was sure of this. Deeply unhappy and helpless he stood there, leaned against the wall.

Palpatine's soft voice was troubling him inside his head like a swarm of hornets. "You do know, don't you, if the Jedi destroy me, any chance of saving her will be lost..."

Through his veil of tears he was staring out of the window. Where was Padmé? He had to touch her again... he needed her so much.

But the night-mare was shoving itself before his inner eye, drastically and inexorably. She was dying. Both of them were heading to that point, continuously and conclusively. They were lost, both. Anakin was choking with grief and pain, he could barely breathe. Pantingly he gasped for breath. He felt like suffocating.

I am lost... it was resounding inside his mind. Lost...

The deadly conclusion was echoing through his soul like the stroke of an enormous black bell. Anakin saw himself - weak, full of panic, a helpless child in all his misery, past all help. He was deeply terrified at this realization - he was overwhelmed with fear and shame. He wished he could die. Now and here.

"Anakin", the voice inside his head insisted. "The most powerful of all Jedi-knights you will be... know the power of the dark side..."

Anakin felt himself slowly getting into the inexorable wake of this voice of evil. He had nothing to put up against it. Yet he hesitated to give in to it. The strain was almost forcing him down to the ground. WHAT SHOULD HE DO?

The young man in his black Jedi togs was trembling all over, he could barely stand. His face - a distorted mask of despair, fear and frustration.

With greatest effort he snatched up his last strength, formed it to an enormous scream in his mind.

I - WON'T - LET - HER - DIE!

The desparate scream was drowning out all of Anakin's feelings. I promised her! was all he could think. And I promised it to my mother! I won't fail again!

Anakin knew - there was only one thing he could do. And he needed Palpatine.

He would defend himself against this - his - fate, with every fibre of his being. He was no desparate little child, he was no Jedi-knight, he was no ordinary man... HE WOULD NOT BE PADME'S WIDOWER!

He - THE CHOSEN ONE, the hero without fear - Anakin Skywalker.

Again he perceived the voice, urging him continuously and softly. Palpatine's voice. Sweet and forceful, conjuring and irresistible.

A last effort of the human Anakin Skywalker to reach his beloved wife, to find salvation in her deep and pure love.

But he could not find Padmé, it was not possible for him.

All his strain was bursting; he was exploding with frustration and rage, but now he hesitated no more, he was breaking all his limits. HE WAS NOT AFRAID OF THE DARK SIDE!

He surrendered himself to the wake of the Sith-Lord's dark voice. He was seeing no more, feeling no more, he was drifting away... head foremost he plunged into the black abyss.

There was no fear, although he sensed that horrible things were awaiting him, infinite depths. He found himself holding his breath; he took a deep and shaking breath. He felt a crawling through and through, a heavy increasing pressure behind his forehead; everything was vibrating, he was like in a trance. The agony had left him, even the rage. Without hesitation or inhibition, he indulged himself into the blackness which had lost its terror. HE was the Chosen One. HE was comprising the beginning and the end. THIS WAS HIS PATH. He could succeed in anything. He would not slacken, never! Boundlessly and consumingly, energies were streaming into his being - energies which he had never known before. Black, blazing. Rage... hatred? Iron determination. He felt himself giving away his soul, his entire being. Black he felt now, black and hard, shining like obsidian. How he had changed!

Something in Anakin was frightened to death. His weak human body was shaking with vehement convulsions, in his veins there was a fire glowing. Nausea was choking him up to the neck... he felt his body cells die - was he being destroyed? He heard himself screaming in deadly fear, but also in dreadful ecstasy.

But he did not die. In heavy thick blackness he was drifting, this was now his element - what had happened? Never had he felt such physical pressure, he felt like being filled with hot black sticky tar, through and through... still he was shaking. Still, black energies were streaming through his interior - incredible things were happening with him... He felt being transformed more and more, withdrawing from the Human being he had been. Mental reserve was vanishing, with it magnanimity, sympathy and humanity. He felt only hatred, cold rage, pitiless determination instead.

Grimaces were throwing themselves to his glance, atrociously looking, screaming, some in agony, some laughing madly, all ripped open mouths and glowing eye-sockets - windows to endless black holes.

Full of horror, he flung himself against the vast quantity of hideously deformed faces, driving away the grimaces again and again; drifting along, like in a trance - there was no way back. He was retching convulsively, wanting to spew his soul out of the body. He felt like a log filled with hot, coarse and hard tar, no more human - monstrous.

At last the face of the Sith-Lord appeared in front of him in the darkness; giant and overwhelming, extinguishing everything else. It was looking daggers at him; in his ears rang the triumphant laugh of evil.

Had he perceived anything else before? He saw no landscape, no sky, no trees - blackness, festering and simmering around the Sith-Lord. Even the grimaces had vanished. Everything was submitting to the Sith-Lord, bowing, transforming before him.

In front of Darth Sidious in all his infernal power, Anakin found himself small, black, miserably trembling and shaking. The remnant of the Human being he had been. Mortal dread was shutting his throat.

"You are fulfilling your destin, Anakin."

How had this happened? How so fast?

"Anakin, if one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects... Learn to know the dark side of the Force, Anakin..." the urgent smooth voice of his mentor was resounding inside his head. Seductive, even logical it had sounded. Then, while he had still been the Jedi-knight Anakin Skywalker.

Like being hypnotized, Anakin was staring up at the giant dreadful face. Palpatine had won him over. He had received him and transformed him according to his will. Anakin was now his apprentice, his tool. There was no way back.

Yet Anakin sensed the enormous lie by which he was taken in. He arrived at a moment of incomprehensible calm.

"I'm dying", his soul whispered. "All I have been is dying. All Padmé is loving has fallen victim of a cruel murder. All what has won Obi-Wans deep affection has gone. The Human being inside me is dying. So creation is dying. Can this be? Is this permitted to be?"

"What is remaining of me?" the dying Anakin asked with a soft childlike voice. "Almost nothing", was the whispered answer. "Just enough for you to stay alive and not to explode in blackness, Anakin. Just enough to stop the final destruction. For this must not be."

Memories were welling up inside him. His long path to the dark side, having begun years ago. Since he had been a small slave boy on Tatooine? He had been wanting to be the best of them all... to make his dreams come true, at any cost... he had been aiming at it with wild determination. With his youth, wild vehement anger had been rapidly increasing inside him, enormous rage, glowing arrogance... softened by his kindness of heart and generosity. And by love for all the people closely connected with him. But this was gone...

For the first time he was facing up to the wild enthusiasm which had seized him so abruptly while killing. Slaying them all! Slaughtering them, crushing them - all, without exception, without mercy... they had merited it. What a transport, what an ecstasy of infinitely increasing power within him! With every death he gained in strenght and determination.

Deeply ashamed and shocked in his very heart, he tried for a last time to evoke a memory of his most happy moments; of his glowing and passionate love for Padmé which had filled him so boundlessly. But he could merely perceive the shadow of it. It was not possible for him any more.

I will preserve her from death! I won't fail again! it was roaring inside his mind. I AM THE CHOSEN ONE!  
I AM THE SITH-LORD.

He shuddered.

There were new pictures before his eyes, it had to be the future. Black as Death he was crossing the galaxy, even the stars were receding before him. Suns lost their brightness. The republic was history. He saw shining black, an enormous singular figure. Its dreadful breath was penetrating through the galaxy, from one end to another. It stood for terror and death. He was the bringer of destruction, he decided on life and death, slaughtering people mercilessly. A black icon of darkness.

The souls, they were falling - the landscape was full of them, night was closing in, an ice-cold wind was blowing.

MY GALAXY. MY EMPIRE.

Fearlessly he was staring into the horrible eyes of Evil, taking pains to resist the diabolic look. "Treason is the way of the Sith", it occured to him. I AM THE CHOSEN ONE. He would usurp all knowledge. He would become almighty!

But the Sith-Lord had a choking grip on him. He had seen through him, the evil look was piercing him. He who had been Anakin Skywalker screamed with pain.

"You are my new apprentice", it was roaring inside his mind. "You will obey me unconditionally. I am your master." "Yes", he croaked.

"You are bearing a new name now. DARTH VADER."

The name was echoing through his mind, uniting with the black tar and the covering which was holding it. Uniting with the enormous shining black figure, the grimace of Evil. Darth Vader.

He felt the new incomprehensible strength. Tool of Evil.

There was no way back. The Jedi-knight Anakin Skywalker was no more. Obi-Wan' friend and companion was no more. The black ardour of hell was absorbing him, it had formed him anew. He was all Sith. He was all hatred-filled determination. He knew no mercy. His eyes were glowing with a wild evil fire. But nevertheless he was thinking of Padmé. MINE she is...!

He heard his own voice; it was several degrees lower than before, coming from down below. It was running into people's stomachs, causing them nausea, vertigo and panic. The bringer of disaster, blackness blowing around him, was striding through dark corridors. Everybody was receding before him.


End file.
